About Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on February 22, 1892 in Maine. She published poems, plays, political writings, and a libretto for an opera.
Millay started to gain fame with the publication of the poem “Renascence” when she was nineteen. It was an entry in a poetry contest, and she came in fourth place. The other people whose poems were recognized above hers said hers was by far the best.
Her poem “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver“ won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. She was only the third woman to win this prize for poetry.
During the first World War, Millay was a known pacifist, but from 1940 on, she supported the Allied Forces, and even wrote poetry to support their efforts. This work for the war hurt her reputation among her peers in poetry circles.
Millay and her husband lived in a farmhouse in Austerlitz, NY for 25 years together. Her husband wanted to create a place that would be conducive to her writing. The house at Steepletop has now become a museum that is open to the public, where tours are available through the house and gardens.
Edna St. Vincent Millay passed away on October 19, 1950.
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
A LITTLE PIECE OF MY HEART 